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Friday, April 3, 2015

Back to Aunt Anna

Anna Josephine Withrow Cromwell would be my great, great, great aunt. She was born at Farmersville, Ohio on Friday, January 16, 1857, and died in her home in Scranton, Iowa on Friday, July 16, 1920. I wrote about her in the post Anna Josephine and Ginevra. According to her obituary, she moved as a small child with her parents to Indiana before moving to Jasper County, Iowa. In the spring of 1876, they came to Greene County, Iowa, settling on a farm southwest of Scranton, where she resided until her marriage to William J. Cromwell on October 3, 1876. I have some problems with this obituary. I corrected the date when the family moved to Greene County. The obituary said 1875. It was February 1876. I had never heard or found anything about the family moving to Indiana from Ohio. However, this is very logical, and I accept it as the case. Then, there is the matter of the wedding date. Was it October 3 or was it October 2? Look carefully at the Marriage Certificate at the end of this page. I encourage you to read all of Anna Josephine's obituary at http://www.jefferson.advantage-preservation.com. It can be found in The Jefferson Bee, July 20, 1920. I especially found the listing of her pall bearers interesting. It states that they were all soldier boys to whom she had written during the late war. The issue for July 14 tells of two daughters coming to assist in her care and that her condition was causing much anxiety among her relatives and many friends. She sounds like she was a wonderful woman.